Police in Moscow, Idaho are still searching for a killer who stabbed four students from the University of Idaho. It was a tragedy that left many university students frightened, with many of them choosing to leave the campus early for Thanksgiving break, even after authorities reassured them that there was no immediate risk to the campus community.
Police asked the public to remain vigilant after the four slain friends were found on Sunday afternoon. Photos suggest that the four students were very close friends, with their Instagram accounts full of pictures of them together and sweet messages. One of the victims recently posted that she felt lucky to be surrounded by the rest of the group.
The police found the four victims in an off-campus apartment on Sunday afternoon, after they received a 911 call about an unconscious person. They identified the victims as Madison Mogen, 21, Ethan Chapin, 20, Xana Kernodle, 20, and Kaylee Goncalves, 21.
Cathy Mabbutt, the Latah County Coroner, said that preliminary investigations showed that all four were stabbed to death. She found no indication that substance use played a part in their deaths.
Since the gruesome findings, the Moscow Police Department has not revealed whether they have identified any suspects. The department issued a statement saying they believed the attacks were targeted and isolated, and there was no evidence to suggest that the community was under an imminent threat.
Police said that there were two more people in the house when the students were killed and that the responding officers found the door of the house open.
During their investigation, police started filling in a timeline of the hours leading up to the slayings. According to James Fry, the Moscow Police Chief, Chaplin and Kernodle, who were dating, were at a party on Saturday night on the university’s campus, while Goncalves and Mogen were at a bar downtown before they all returned to the home in the early hours of Sunday morning, at around 1:45 am.
Just before they got home, Mogen and Goncalves went to a late-night food truck and placed an order. They appeared in a live Twitch stream of the food truck and approached it at around 1:40 am.
The food truck manager said the two did not seem in danger as they made their order and talked to a few other people there.
All four friends were murdered in the home sometime in the wee hours, but the police did not get a 911 call until Sunday noon.
Police Chief Fry did not reveal who made the call, but he did say that there were two roommates in the house at the time of the murders who were not injured. He said investigators were focusing not only on the two roommates but everyone who might have access to the home.
Local law enforcement was working with the FBI and state police on the case, but they still had not found a murder weapon, a suspect, or a motive, making residents of the city, which had not recorded a murder since 2015, very worried.
The President of the University of Idaho, Scott Green, said that the school had resumed studies after they canceled classes on Monday.